What exactly is going on at Ipswich these days? They've regularly challenged for the play-offs over the last few years, but they seem to be going through a tremendous slump in form this season - at the very least they've been extremely inconsistent. I know that they were forced to sell Murphy to Newcastle for financial reasons, but is there something more troubling going on at Portman Road?

Now I knew it was close to my birthday, and I thought it was on the actual day, which it was . I remember driving back on a super clear evening, and all the towns we passed on the motorway had fireworks displays going off left right and centre, even when we got to the M25 you could see displays all over London.

Perfect draw really, just a shame it wasn't at the Amex. If Ipswich win our reserve team will probably get knocked out, if Lincoln win our ressies will give them a tough game no matter what Lincoln fans say.

Perfect draw really, just a shame it wasn't at the Amex. If Ipswich win our reserve team will probably get knocked out, if Lincoln win our ressies will give them a tough game no matter what Lincoln fans say.

This.

And from a supporter perspective Ipswich would surely do cheap tickets, and Lincoln would be a fun trip up north.

Would be interested to see how you arrive at that and what you consider is a 'heavy loss'. Say the crowd was approx 25% kids, gate receipts would have been approx £115k plus £67.5k. Most of the ground was closed so running costs would have been reduced drastically, no travel subsidy to pay. Add in something for programmes and concessions. So struggling to see where this 'heavy loss' comes from?

Would be interested to see how you arrive at that and what you consider is a 'heavy loss'. Say the crowd was approx 25% kids, gate receipts would have been approx £115k plus £67.5k. Most of the ground was closed so running costs would have been reduced drastically, no travel subsidy to pay. Add in something for programmes and concessions. So struggling to see where this 'heavy loss' comes from?

Profit/Loss can be defined in a number of ways. Your method looks at the match day revenue and cost in isolation. Nothing wrong with that. Another method involves including day to day club running costs to which match days are supposed to help finance. This is the way most businesses look at their profit/loss. For instance a team in a business will usually have to include in their costs an amount for desk space, HR etc. Under this definition I would imagine the MK Dons game operated at a significant loss.

I would imagine these fixed costs are pretty constant but they still have to be covered. A home FA. Cup tie is an opportunity to make significant inroads into these costs.There is probably a required revenue or 'budget' for every match and Saturday is unlikely to have reached that level.